Varadero lives up to its reputation for beauty and hospitality

Dozens of resorts and restaurants in Varadero give visitors a wide variety of dining and accommodation choices.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Postmedia News

Cuba is renowned as one of the most colourful and compelling holiday destinations in the Caribbean. The island nation boasts a wealth of stunning colonial architecture, a fascinating history, roads filled with brightly restored vintage vehicles, sizzling music and unforgettable beaches.

If you decide to experience one of Cuba’s best beaches, Varadero may well be your destination. This 20-kilometre stretch of sand is the number-one tourist destination in Cuba.

Many travellers have dubbed Varadero the world’s most beautiful beach. One stroll along the flour-soft sand demonstrates why.

The water sparkles in shades of blue and turquoise. Tropical breezes keep the temperature sitting at a comfortable average of 24 to 26 C year-round. Palm trees provide ambience and shade. And walking barefoot along the white sand is infinitely more appealing than trudging through wintry streets in snow boots.

The extensive development in Varadero is quite a change from its early days in the 1500s, when the centre was little more than a dry dock for shipping out product from its salt mines to the Spanish.

In 1887, however, Varadero gained status as a city. Ten families were given permission to build vacation homes on the site.

When the earliest tourists came to Varadero in the 1870s, it was seen as a playground for the elite. A swishy club and an annual rowing regatta were created. American millionaires began popping by for visits and by the early 1930s, some were building mansions on this paradise of a peninsula. Gangster Al Capone was among the visitors.

The Cuban Revolution changed much of that beginning in 1959. The government took many estate homes away from the wealthy and encouraged Cubans from all socio-economic classes to visit Varadero. They even created free changing areas and bathing suit rentals for families of modest means.

But there was another major change to come. Economic upheaval around the world, including the break-up of the Soviet Union and plummeting sugar prices, began creating financial hardship in the country. Cuba had long relied on sugar production and friendly Soviet markets and supporters for survival.

The government began looking for a solution to its revenue woes and found one in tourism.

Dozens of new hotels and resorts went up up in Varadero in the 1990s, and Cuba began wooing Canadian and European tourists.

With a general travel ban to Cuba still in effect for Americans, Canadians eventually came to comprise almost half of the country’s two million or so visitors each year. (Europeans and Latin Americans largely account for the rest.)

There is much in Cuba that makes a Canadian feel welcome. Canadian flags flutter in the breeze at many hotels. Alberta beef is featured on the menus of finer restaurants. The country even hosts a Terry Fox Run to aid cancer research.

More than half a million visitors arrive annually in Varadero alone these days, and hotel rooms number more than 17,000.

Not surprisingly, many of visitors’ favourite activities revolve around the ocean: scuba diving, snorkelling, deep-sea fishing and yachting are all popular.

If you do want to tear yourself away from the beach, there’s no shortage of activities. Try a Jet Ski, horseback or Jeep tour. Or visit a restored fortress, a military museum, a vibrant wetlands area or underground cavern system.

One of coolest caving experiences is at the Santa Catalina Cave, where you can explore more than eight kilometres of passageways. Evidence of ancient societies have been uncovered here. At Ambrosio Cave more than 70 pictographs have been preserved.

Visitors looking for even more history can enjoy the historical and cultural attractions in nearby Cardenas and Matanzas.

And there’s always Havana. A day trip to the capital quickly reveals the unique appeal of an unforgettable centre.

Streetscapes featuring the grand architecture from centuries past is punctuated by the bright reds, greens and blues of residents’ laundry on clothes lines. A stroll through the famous Hotel Nacional is a must, as is stopping for one of Cuba’s best-known drinks – the mojito – in the lobby bar.

You can walk in the footsteps of the great American writer Ernest Hemingway, who was a long-time fan and resident of Cuba. Pop into La Bodeguita Del Medio, where the author was rumoured to hoist the occasional mojito or daiquiri, and sip a cool cocktail.

The streets of Havana are filled with an amazing array of Chevys, Pontiacs and Buicks from the 1950s. Until the American trade embargo, Cuba was a large importer of these vehicles. When the country was told residents could no longer buy American cars, Cubans decided they were going to make the ones they already had last and last.

The fact these vehicles are still running 50 years later is a testament to the wizardry of Cuban mechanics.

“It’s magic that they still run,” one cab driver laughed, during a recent visit.

Magic doesn’t only apply to the vintage vehicles. It seems to infuse the island, from the people and politics to the shorelines and scenery. It’s something that makes a visit to Varadero unforgettable.

Cuba by the Numbers

0: The number of native plants and animals in Cuba that can kill humans.

17: Cuba is the 17th largest island in the world.

4,000: The number of tiny islands that are part of the country.

1961: The year the United States imposed a trade embargo on Cuba.

151: The level of high-proof rum used to mix the high-octane cocktail known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

4: The ideal number of mint leaves to add to a mojito.

160 to 220: The ideal tempo (beats per minute) of Cuban salsa.

9,000: The number of books once belonging to Ernest Hemingway now housed in the Finca Vigia museum.

22: The percentage of Cuba’s land mass classified as a protected natural area.

9.98: The number of births per thousand; one of the Western world’s lowest rates.

11.4 million: Cuba’s population.

90: The number of minutes it takes to reach Cuba from Florida, by boat.

97: The percentage of Cubans who can read and write; education is free and mandatory until at least age 16. University education is common.

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